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Being In New England and it's going into spring time it would behoove many, not just BMW owners, to find a good source for power washing the under carriage. Early today I read an article that Acura had recalled some of the cars that are located in New England specifically due to the Pre-treatment the roads receive before a storm. I've also heard of some instances where CEL, destroyed wires and other things were caused directly because of this stuff. Did some further research and located the company that distributes this stuff. Basically it's a manufactured brine, or sea water. On their website they have a Material Safety Data Sheet which explains and lays out the known hazards of a multitude of their products. reading through, there's no known negative effects to people, but it states "Thermal Decomposition may produce Oxides of Carbon." Which basically means it will eat away at your car, the steel, tires, everything. If a major known car company had issues with this stuff, I'm sure that says volumes of the negative effects on our vehicles.
Happy Motoring.

You have an 02, you must have some rust on there already.. mine is rusting badly near the passenger rear fender, under trunk, near some of the doorsills, but my undercarriage is pretty good considering. Adn I've been driving through the new england winters in salt like crazy since 2005, my car was a new england car before I got it too so it's been exposed to this all of it's life. Makes me sad to see my meticulous maintenance of the exterior rusting away

You have an 02, you must have some rust on there already.. mine is rusting badly near the passenger rear fender, under trunk, near some of the doorsills, but my undercarriage is pretty good considering. Adn I've been driving through the new england winters in salt like crazy since 2005, my car was a new england car before I got it too so it's been exposed to this all of it's life. Makes me sad to see my meticulous maintenance of the exterior rusting away

Sorry meant to comment. But a royal PITA noised in. I was at work having a conversation about all the nonsense they throw on the roads. Did some research and boom that's the stuff I came up with. Later on I heard about stories of breaklubes rotting through. Control arms snapping etc. That stuff destroys everything. Oh well. Doesn't hurt to get a good power wash and detail your engine properly. Some one on one time with.

Not necessarily, A good shop will bring your car on a ramp at eye level, use a specific desalinization solution, high pressure water and very high temp water and go over it a couple times. I bring my car to the same spot every year and bring the rest of my families car. $50 is a bit steep, and unless you have a lift and a ramp you wont get up and underneath as well as they would.

Ill buy that. I just think of to many shady shops just putting it up on ramps and hosing it down. So if you have a reputable place then it would be worth it

Yea reputable place of course. My dad has known this guy since grade school. Not to mention the amount of business they push through this time of year. Point is, I co-worker's wife had trouble slowing down on the highway. car was pulling drastically to the right. Turned out it was break line rotted through. A shop I know of that does repairs for a lot of plow trucks in the area, break lines, undercarriages etc. always being replaced. Which reminds me I've got to look into my A/C lines, they were looking pretty bad.

Having grown up here, I'm more than familiar with the rust due to salt and moisture. In 1976 my dad bought me a '76 Pontiac Parisienne 2+2 convert. It had 37k, and 2 years later I had the frame changed. Yup, it was rusted beyond repair. the body was rotted, and had already been patched...

I dreamed of buying cars in California, and it took me until 6 years ago to finally do this. I have now brought prolly 15 cars and trucks back, the 1st few shipped, now I drive them, sometimes towing some old clunker.

But even tho they're 99.9% rust free, how do you keep them that way? I've spent an hour per vehicle on a mild winter day flushing the undercarriage with warm water, and no matter how much I would rinse, even using a pressure washer, there would be white salt stains the next day. And I was THOROUGH!!!

Being a Kanuk, it's kinda common for folks to spray their undercarriage with a variety of petroleum products. Used drain oil, chain saw oil, vaseline, diffy oil (smells nice) etc... I tried KROWN, a product from Toronto, toal garbage, it dried up after a few days and left ZERO residue. I called them, and told them so, we had a back and forth... got no where. I then tried a mobile grease spray guy. He smoked cigs whilst applying his thick but creeping product, but he missed lots of areas, and it swelled some rubber moldings on my 100% rust free Hyundai from Phoenix.

The following contains sales pitch, so pls click off if you don't want to read an endorsement. So by chance a fellow that watches my videos suggested an old time product called Fluid Film. I bought a spray can at the John Deere dealer, liked it, and bot a 5 gallon pail and it comes w a sprayer & little hoses for crevices. Costs $230, and 1 gallon is enuff for a car.

I did 2 Suburbans, and I do a thorough job, remove tailamps, every nook and cranny. I spray EVERYTHING metal, even in the brake rotor slots, transmission, axle, backing plates, calipers etc etc etc... I have several videos of me doing the application. There are other products that may work as well, but I'll stick w this one cause it's NOT petroleum based, which means it doesn't swell rubber parts like grease or bar oil would.

It doesn't drip, smells kinda minty, is easily wiped off or body edges that it creeps from and basically just protects the metal its applied to.

I've heard every argument for every product, including bedliner sprayed under vehicle. That, like rubberized undercoating is too thick and dries, so water/salt gets behind and does more damage that you won't see till it's way too late. I even spray under rubber moldings that contain a metal frame. A suburban takes me 10 hours. It would be nice if I had a lift. A BMW would require 1 gallon, and I would recommend 1 quart of the thicker "AR" painted into the wheel wells due to road splash washing the thinner Fluid Film off.

Google my suggested product, there's plenty on youtube. Feel free to ask me any questions... I'm a hands on kinda guy... I will be doing my newly acquired '03 325xi as soon as I do a variety of repairs as the FF is obviously messy when you dig into it.

Having grown up here, I'm more than familiar with the rust due to salt and moisture. In 1976 my dad bought me a '67 Pontiac Parisienne 2+2 convert. It had 37k, and 2 years later I had the frame changed. Yup, it was rusted beyond repair. the body was rotted, and had already been patched... I just vidded an '06 Silverado with rotted rockers..

I dreamed of buying cars in California, and it took me until 6 years ago to finally do this. I have now brought prolly 15 cars and trucks back, the 1st few shipped, now I drive them, sometimes towing some old clunker.

But even tho they're 99.9% rust free, how do you keep them that way? I've spent an hour per vehicle on a mild winter day flushing the undercarriage with warm water, and no matter how much I would rinse, even using a pressure washer, there would be white salt stains the next day. And I was THOROUGH!!!

Being a Kanuk, it's kinda common for folks to spray their undercarriage with a variety of petroleum products. Used drain oil, chain saw oil, vaseline, diffy oil (smells nice) etc... I tried KROWN, a product from Toronto, total garbage, it dried up after a few days and left ZERO residue underneath and on the frame, it's still under the hood, a protected area. I called them, and told them so, we had a back and forth... got no-where. I then tried a mobile grease spray guy. He smoked cigs whilst applying his thick but creeping product, but he missed lots of areas, and it swelled some rubber moldings on my 100% rust free Hyundai from Phoenix.

The following contains sales pitch, so pls click off if you don't want to read an endorsement. So by chance a fellow that watches my videos suggested an old time product called Fluid Film. I bought a spray can at the John Deere dealer, liked it, and bot a 5 gallon pail and it comes w a sprayer & little hoses for crevices. Costs $230, and 1 gallon is enuff for a car.

I did 2 Suburbans, and I do a thorough job, remove tailamps, every nook and cranny. I spray EVERYTHING metal, even in the brake rotor slots, transmission, axle, backing plates, calipers etc etc etc... I have several videos of me doing the application. There are other products that may work as well, but I'll stick w this one cause it's NOT petroleum based, which means it doesn't swell rubber parts like grease or bar oil would.

It doesn't drip, smells kinda minty, is easily wiped off or body edges that it creeps from and basically just protects the metal its applied to.

I've heard every argument for every product, including bedliner sprayed under vehicle. That, like rubberized undercoating is too thick and dries, so water/salt gets behind and does more damage that you won't see till it's way too late. I even spray under rubber moldings that contain a metal frame. A suburban takes me 10 hours. It would be nice if I had a lift. A BMW would require 1 gallon, and I would recommend 1 quart of the thicker "AR" painted into the wheel wells due to road splash washing the thinner Fluid Film off.

Google my suggested product, there's plenty on youtube. Feel free to ask me any questions... I'm a hands on kinda guy... I will be doing my newly acquired '03 325xi as soon as I do a variety of repairs as the FF is obviously messy when you dig into it.

Here's that Pontiac... pix from my foto album... My friend bot an almost identical 2+2 that I was going to steal the hubcaps from, his got a 409 the next summer, mine got 3-2's, a little much for a 283!

The metal does absorb it, Hopefully the new Aluminum alloy frames that they are using now are less prone to corrosion. Maybe an effort by the automotive industry to coat the frames better, either way it sucks!